Flat objects, particularly printed products are covered with plastic films or paper for their protection, e.g. for dispatch purposes. For this purpose individual or groups of printed products are for example rolled up or bent round twice to form a type of S-shaped roll and in the same working step are covered in such a way that the covering passes around the roll more than once and in the overlap area is joined to itself with the aid of glue or a material-inherent adhesiveness and can be closed in this way. The covering can be narrower than the roll and form a type of covering band. It can also be of the same width and cover the entire circumferential surface of the roll, or can be wider than the roll and in a further step is for example laterally folded in or welded, so that the roll is covered on all sides. Methods and apparatuses for such rolling or folding processes with a covering integrated into the process are for example described in EP . . . 568844, patent application EP-588758 and patent application CH-1000/93-0 corresponding to EP-618138 of the same applicant.
A method and an apparatus for the folding of printed products and simultaneously covering the flat-folded printed products is for example described in German patent 153 986. Here again the covering is substantially of the same width or narrower than the printed product and is so dimensioned in the covering direction that an overlap occurs and can be closed by the gluing of the overlap area.
All these prior art covering methods are necessarily associated with a shape change of the flat object (rolling, bending, folding) and cannot be used without this.